Can selfies be art? What I found at the Original Selfie Museum opening
I have a not-so-surprising confession: I love taking photos of myself.
I came of age in the era of the front-face camera, a post-Myspace/early-Instagram No Man’s Land. I take “selfies” constantly — to show off an outfit, with my cats climbing on me first thing in the morning, to document everything from a visit with my parents to a 2020 ER trip.
Still, the relationship I have to selfies is complicated. It’s an emotional roller coaster ride from “selfies are tacky but I can’t stop taking them,” to “I’ll take them but won’t post that many,” to “literally who cares, I will take and post photos of myself if I want.” The newly-opened Original Selfie Museum in downtown Raleigh does not calm those feelings.
Follow the music through a door on Fayetteville Street located near the city museum and behind a locally-owned gift shop. The pounding bass will reverberate against the steps as you walk down to a basement space and are greeted by pink accents and the smell of fresh paint. Two rooms lined with booths are waiting for you: a room with a bed and nightstand on the wall, a room covered in smiley faces, a room with a disco ball, a wall of pink gumball machines with bubblegum-colored balls (not to be eaten), and other patterns and lights and props to create the magazine spread or album cover of your dreams for $29 on weekdays and $34 on the weekend.
The point of the Selfie Museum is not to be art, in and of itself. It exists to make the visitor into art. Andrew Butenko, one of the co-founders of the museum franchise that started in Colorado in 2019, says they stay away from politics and art that would “insult.” When picking artists, they look for ideas that are already fleshed out, so that they know the subject matter and what the colors will look like, and so they know it will look good in the background of your photo.
Selfies can be art. Frida Kahlo spent her entire career painting herself in new, surreal ways to capture her suffering. Vincent Van Gogh documented the bandage that framed his face after cutting off his left ear. More contemporary artists, like Man Ray and Andy Warhol, photographed themselves in their quests to make sense of the world. I’ve personally been invested in the works of Anna Marie Tendler, the former wife of comedian John Mulaney, whose self-portrait series captured loss and rebirth in the wake of their public divorce over the last year.
If self-portraiture can be art, it can also be product. The Kardashian/Jenner clan have perfected this: not only has Kim Kardashian created a coffee table book of selfies, she was on the receiving end of one of the best comments on the medium, when her mother said “Kim, would you stop taking selfies of yourself? Your sister’s going to jail” in a 2007 episode of the family reality show. There are supermodel selfies and influencer selfies, where a combination of beauty and preexisting fame are used to sell “tummy teas” or new clothing lines.
The Original Selfie Museum falls into a blurred middle ground, but ultimately leans into commodity. The booths exist for you to take photos, and those photos are meant to be shared on social media, to increase social capital (the setups are great if you’re missing photos for your dating profile). If you were unsure, the souvenirs in the corner will give away its existence as a business: a pink hat that says “Make Selfie Great Again,” a disco ball tumbler, and t-shirts.
Maybe it’s better that something exists outside of art museums or graffiti; it provides an avenue for taking cool photos that doesn’t involve blocking the view of the latest NCMA exhibit. At the same time, is there harm in anyone having photos of themselves that they like, that capture their personality, that don’t highlight a messy house or a lack of decoration? What is the difference between this and the traveling Van Gogh exhibits, which project images of the artist’s work on blank walls?
As I mull this over while walking through the museum, Butenko points me to a blue and yellow striped wall, in solidarity with Ukraine (where he’s from).
Reality always finds its way in, even in a neon, apolitical world.
